Fayette schools to teachers: Please donate your raises

[Are_grits_groceries]

The cash-strapped Fayette County school system is asking its teachers to voluntarily return the pay raises they received last spring.

School board members say if the county’s teachers would return their 2.5 percent raises, it could keep the 24,000-student system afloat. Should they all return the raises, it would add roughly $4 million to the system’s coffers.

In Monday night’s meeting, board members decided they had nothing to lose by writing a letter to Fayette’s roughly 1,800 contracted teachers asking them to voluntarily “make a donation” to the system’s financial well-being.
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Todd and board member Marion Key sounded confident their teachers would respond positively.
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Those options included the furloughing of some contracted employees, such as principals, starting next month and the slashing the salaries for pre-kindergarten para-professional teachers, all in the hopes of avoiding layoffs.

Other measures on the table include a reduction in county contributions to employee life and long-term disability insurance plans and a possible reduction of the 180-day school year.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/fayette/stories/2009/01/05/fayette_schools.html

Yeah, I'll bet they respond positively. Are administrators being asked to return anything?? Furlough the principals!